Critical Issues Books

Billy Bully

Citation :  Galan. A ( 2009 ) Billy Bully : A school – yard counting table. New York , NY: Scholastic.Inc.,

ISBN # :  978 – 0 – 545 – 11012 – 9

   Describing  the book content : This is a book about bullying. Billy Bully does/says things to his friends, which are mean and hurt their feelings; therefore he loses them one by one. Finally he is left by himself, and nobody wants to play with him anymore. He decides to get his friends back one by one by doing nice things for/to them. It is also a great book in terms of teaching children how to count from 1-10 and backwards from 10-1. As they are listening to the story, they can count the number of Billy’s friends, which are going down , because Billy is being a bully. Then when Billy Bully finds out that he is lonely and nobody is there to play with him , he goes back to his friends , he does/says nice things to them to make them feel better, and he slowly befriends everyone again (here the children could count the number of Billy’s friends from 1-10 when all of his friends are back at the playground with him) .


   Why I would use it for 3 - 5 Years old : I would use this book for 3-5 year old children because it is a very educational book in terms of how we can think about our friends’ feelings. Sometimes it is good to say nice things to our friends, to help them, to share things with them, to listen to them, to wait for them, and to show them how to do things. This book teaches children that Bullying hurts people’s feelings and when we constantly hurt our friends’ feelings then they will not want to be our friend anymore. But if we change the way we treat our friends then we can gain their trust back and we won’t be lonely anymore (just like Billy did) . In terms of teaching children how to count , I think children love to participate when someone is reading a book to them, therefore, getting the children to count the numbers with you gets them engaged and interested with the material you are reading.
  
   Comment on Illustrations : I think the illustrations are very intelligent, they are colourful, bright, and attractive (likely to catch the children’s eyes) . The poetic structure is fun and simple, and if read many times, the children may pick it up and be able to say the story with you. The picture on the cover of the book is very much related to the story. Billy is standing all by himself in the middle of the schoolyard, while all of his friends are around him, staring at him with unhappy faces. Once Billy realized what consequences his behaviour had, he changed his behaviour and was generous to his friends, so they would want to play with him again, as Billy did not like being lonely. It was a hppy conclusion for Billy and all his friends when he learned how to play nicely with his friends

  Background Knowledge : I will draw the picture of Billy Bully sitting on a bench all by himself with a sad looking face. Then I would ask the children why Billy is sitting all by himself, and why he looks so sad ? Then later that afternoon or the next day I will present the same picture of Billy and this time present the picture of all his friends around him looking angry at him, and again ask questions, like why are Billy's friends angry with him? Then on the same day or the next I will read the book to them, thus giving the children more perspective on what the pictures presented prior were all about.

Three ways to present the book :

•  Felt story – there will be a felt board with a green background , with white clouds , a school building , a bench , a slide , a swing , a ball and some sticks . There will be a Cow , sheep, pig, dog , bird, horse , rabbit , duck , cat and a frog . These pieces can be found ready - made ( in a form of a set ) from stores such as 3Hcarftworks , in Vancouver.
• Reading the book to the children . This way you are not only reading a book , but changing your voice , asking questions , stopping and pausing on some of the pages and wondering, with children, about what will happen next. Wondering help provoke further interest in the book.  In this case, I will begin reading the story in my regular voice, but my voice will change as Billy encounters his different friends (Frog , Duck, Rabbit , bird , etc ). For example : I change my voice to the sound of Duck – quack , quack , or to the sound of a Frog – raaaabbit , raaaabbit ........ . I will also extend the words of the numbers to get the children to finish the number, for example, I would say ....his friends are down to fiiiii......; hoping they will be able to finish the word ( five) . As I am counting down the number of Billy’s friends , I stop on page 9 and ask : “ I wonder how many friends he has now ?” and on page 14 I will ask “ I wonder what happens to Billy now?” and then right after that on page 15; I will ask “ I wonder what Billy will do now?”. Wondering with children also helps them to saty focused on the story and keeps their interest in the story. It also gets them involved, where they get to anticipate what will happen next.
• Story Basket : in my basket I will have puppets of all the animals in the story ( cow, bird, rabbit , frog , sheep, dog , cat , pig ) . I will have a little chair or bench , trees and flowers for the school yard, a house which represents the school , a small ball , some really small sticks , and some plastic food ( carrots, apple , cookies ) . I will cover the basket and as I am saying the story I will take out the pieces one by one. I will let the children free play and role play with the accessories from the basket after we have done circle time.

Three possible extensions: 

•  children can color the ready - made picture of the animals in the story , cut around them and hang them on a long piece of string ( like a key chain ) which presents the circle of friendship.
• we can make masks of the animals in the book : children can draw their favourite animal from the book on a white paper plate, and then colour them. Then we can make two holes on either side of the plate, tie elastic from one end to the other so that it fits around each child’s head, so their hands are free, then we can cut out where their eyes would be, and the mouth, if you like, so that they can role play wearing masks. 
•  Counting numbers from low to high and vice versa ! For this activity the children can sit on the floor ( in a circle ) . The teacher holds a ball and plays the music . As the music starts playing the children pass a ball to the person sitting next to them, as each child gets the ball they say the next consecutive number in the sequence. While they are passing the ball , they are repeating the numbers loud ( e.g. 1 – 2 - 3 – 4 ...) , and the numbers can be the amount of children in the class, it does not have to be exactly 10 children, thus you can teach more numbers if there are more than 10 children in the class. As the music stops , whoever is holding the ball ( e.g. child number 4 is holding the ball ) will move from his / her spot and sit in the middle of the circle . When all the children are sitting in the middle of the circle, the teacher then plays the music again and this time children pass a ball to each other counting backwards from the high to low ( e.g. 10 – 9 – 8 – 7, ...) , when the music stops , whoever is holding the ball ( e.g. child number 6 is holding the ball ) , then he/she leaves his/her spot and sits back in the circle !